By Subhash K. Jha
Mumbai, Jan 8 (IANS) Vidya Balan, who never touches alcohol, has shot a special risque number entitled “Ibn batuta” in “Ishqiya” with her co-stars Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi.

“We shot the song last month after the entire shooting was completed. I don’t drink and I had to act sozzled along with Naseer saab and Arshad,” Viday told IANS.

The song will be used in the opening and credit titles of “Ishqiya”.

“Arshad is a fabulous dancer. And Naseer saab was having a ball dancing to the song Vishal Bhardwaj had composed. I think the last time he danced was for ‘Oye oye’ in ‘Tridev’. But you can’t tell. He’s so good. Both the guys were having so much fun and I had to join in pretending to be totally drunk,” said Vidya.

The song came out so well that the director Abhishek Choubey was thinking of using it in the narrative. But since it didn’t fit in, “Ibn batuta” will now just be part of the credit titles.

That isn’t the only daredevil thing Vidya has done in “Ishqiya”. She had to suck Arshad’s thumb in the movie.

“Fortunately, Arshad is a friend. We’ve gotten along well from the time we did ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ together. I don’t know if I’d have been able to do a scene like putting my co-star’s finger in the mouth with someone else. That gesture of sucking Arshad’s thumb was so raunchy and sexy, so not me, I couldn’t connect with it all,” she said.

That sense of non-connectivity, says Vidya, runs through her character in the film that is releasing Jan 29.

“I play this rustic, voluptuous woman. All my weight-loss happened after I did this film. I had to look filled up for this part. In ‘Ishqiya’, everything - from the way I wore my sari to the way I looked at men - was alien to me. The role exposed me to a new way of interpreting a liberated woman. My character in ‘Ishqiya’ may not know about feminism. But she’s truly liberated.”

“Abhishek Choubey had to constantly keep giving me a pep talk. Quite often I was stuck because of the language and content,” she added.

Vidya is now looking forward to the release of the movie.